realtek hd audio manager not treating headset as headphones

There's probably a few other things I've tried that I've forgotten about. No luck - they're apparently already up-to-date, and I even tried installing Asus's audio drivers/software for the motherboard.on the next reboot, it re-installed the $%#$ing Realtek drivers and puts me back on square one. I'd be willing to live with that, except. although it only seemed to support the speakers operating in stereo mode, not 5.1. After uninstalling the drivers and rebooting, Windows installed its own drivers and they seemed to pick up the speakers and headset as separate devices.

Uninstalling Realtek HD Audio drivers and using the Windows 10 ones instead.I haven't had any luck finding a version of the software that would let me change those settings. These options are not available in the ASUS version of the Realtek HD Audio Manager that I have.Use the Realtek HD Audio Manager program to change settings such as 'front panel jack detection' or 'make front and rear output devices playback two different audio streams simultaneously'.I have read every thread I can find and tried everything I can think of. I've spent most of the afternoon trying to fix this, to no avail. Since they're both being treated as a single device, they share settings - Windows still treats it as 5.1 speakers when the audio is going out of the headset, they cannot have different volumes, etc. When I unplug the headset's audio jack, audio comes through the speakers once more. Problem is, when I plug my headset into the front jacks, it no longer appears as a separate playback device - the 'speakers' device just starts outputting to the headset. The rear panel only has 3 audio jacks (green, blue, pink) but looking at the manual I was able to figure out how to connect the 5.1 plugs correctly and they work as expected. I've just switched to a computer running an Asus Z170M-PLUS mobo, with ALC887 audio. I was able to switch between them via the speaker/volume icon in the task bar, the speakers were recognised as 5.1 and the headphones were recognised as headphones, they had their own settings, etc. On my previous computer ( Asus Z87-C mobo, with ALC892 audio), I was able to have my 5.1 speaker setup connected to the rear panel (using the dedicated green/orange/black plugs) and my headset (analog audio and mic) connected to the front jacks, and Windows 10 / the Realtek HD Audio driver would treat them as separate playback devices. I've linked to relevant pics/manuals to make things easier. I've really run out of ideas for this issue.

Realtek hd audio manager not treating headset as headphones